


The Boy Who Always Smiled

by alec



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-05 05:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5362625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alec/pseuds/alec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco Bodt smiled all the time. And it pissed Jean off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy Who Always Smiled

Marco Bodt smiled all the time. And it pissed Jean off.

Every time he would see the boy, helping out on something, doing chores, struggling to maneuver his limbs into the training harnesses — every time Jean caught the figure of the boy out of the corner of his eye, he had on a smile. Or a grin. Or even just a look of contentment in the upturned corners of his lips, and Jean wanted to take the boy and shake him until he scowled. But Marco wouldn't scowl, and so Jean did.

Training was hard. Jean had had some notion going into it that it would be rough, but that he could survive. The stories of cadets dying would happen to other people, not to him. And to his credit, he had managed not to die yet. But it was so much worse than anything he had truly imagined. Long nights spent traversing the forest to find the only carton of food left for them to eat; picking up swords at dawn and finally dropping them to the ground at dusk, hilt covered in blood; climbing cliffsides only to be thrown off again, needing to learn to maneuver as baby birds learned to fly. Jean had thought life beyond the walls was what Hell would be. And it was. Anywhere the titans were was where Hell would be. But Jean began to realise that Hell wasn't just limited to the world beyond.

And Jean would catch the boy, with the freckles that scattered his face in the most annoying ways, bent over with his hands on his knees, breathing deep after a run that he won only because of his longer legs. And he would be smiling. And Jean would notice him, having sat in the saddle on his horse for hours far longer than he could count, and the boy would be teetering on the verge of sleep, with with happiness still on his mouth. And Jean would watch him, having only by a millimetre evaded the crossbow bolt on a training descent, breathing deeply in a sigh of relief. And still a smile.

And Jean learned that he hated the boy who always smiled.

It helped nothing that Jean was assigned to the boy's group. For all of his everything, Marco had proved himself to be an excellent trainee. And so Marco was chosen to be one of the leaders of groups when they would be sent out on missions. And it as much as Jean was able to take, having to listen to instructions and be given orders from Marco. But if he was going to excel and join the Military Police, he had no choice but to obey. The fire of indignation was only fanned when the boy's orders turned out to be the correct ones. It took much time, and much beer, to begin to admit to his ego that Marco was right. It was too hard, and he would shake his head, and would scowl and pick a fight with Eren. This was what they were living in. This was reality. Here, training for what would be their open graves, they were all as far from heaven as they would ever be.

Then Marco began coming to Jean intentionally. At first it would be a look his direction with a nod after a successful job. Then it would be coming up to him and giving him praise, or asking for simple observations or opinions. Jean would look away and wrinkle his nose, but it stroked his pride enough that he would begrudgingly answer with more than a curt word. And in turn, Marco sought out Jean when he made all decisions, and in time it became official — that Jean was the second-in-command to the boy who always smiled. And Jean would grind his teeth and clench his fists, making sure at least _he_  was grounded.

And it made him so angry— he wanted to hate the other boy so much. Everything about him pissed Jean off. Jean wanted to hate him. But Marco was just so calm, so honest, so disarming that Jean began to realise that he couldn't. Jean would fight off even the slightest of smiles when he was around Marco. But as the second year of training began, Jean was beginning to like Marco. He wasn't sure when — or _how_ — it happened. Maybe it had been a gradual ease rather than a sudden arrival, but Jean found himself enjoying the company that Marco would provide, even if he resented the smile that the boy brought with him.

It was a September night during their second year that the words left Jean's mouth. The question he didn't want to know the answer to. But here it was, just the two of them, legs relaxing after the impossibly long trek from the cliffs to the camp. It would be two more days until they arrived, and the two friends sat away from the others, who were falling asleep by the blessed fire.

"Why are you always smiling."

He supposed he hadn't asked it as a question; rather, a statement which expected a response.

"What?" came the reply, and Jean could feel the eyes of the boy turned on him. Jean continued looking forward, out over the trees of the forest, because he couldn't do this while staring at the boy's mouth.

"Why are you always smiling. It's been nearly two years, and I've never seen you frown or scowl or anything. It's always a smile, even when you're asleep." There was silence, and then he could feel the eyes alongside him turn back to the trees as well.

It was a long pause before he answered.

"The world that we live in is horrible. Everything around us is suffering, death; pain, sorrow. Those of us who don't die will do nothing but watch the others die, and we'll have to listen to their screams to the end. So many of the people we're training with and eating with and joking with are going to be eaten. So much of everything around us is nothing but disaster and cruelty and evil.

"And there's so little to be thankful for. We have so few moments when we think we're safe and can celebrate, and even less now after what happened in Trost. Everything hurts and it's so rare that you'll find something to be happy about—

"But I guess what I want to say is that the world is so much hurt. And it would be easy, and normal, to let the pain control us. We aren't born happy, and we won't die happy. You have to choose to be happy. You have to see that, whether or not we're there to enjoy it, the day will pass and you'll be one day closer to your death. That whether or not you enjoy it, your life is going to happen, and even if you can't control the road you walk, you can control how you walk it. And so it's hard, every day to wear a smile, but I have to do it, because I choose to be happy.

"We have to choose to be happy, Jean. It won't come to us without us making it come.

"And I choose to be happy. Because that's all I've got left for me in this life."

Jean wasn't aware of when he had turned to face the boy and watch him talk. The smile that he wore every day was gone, for the moment taken away by the breeze which carried away Marco's words. And Jean wondered now if this was Marco's real face, or if the smile was. Jean said nothing for the rest of the night, but he rested his head on his friend's shoulder and thought about what he had heard for the first time in his life.

* * *

The battle had been so much worse than it should have been. So much death, so much blood. Jean's ears rung with the pained cries and final sobs of the friends he couldn't watch being eaten. All around him were the broken figures of people Jean didn't want to see. There would be no graves for these people. This town would be their graves.

It took two days until Jean found Marco. So many of the cadets had been scattered around the town. But the colour drained from his face, feeling the sickening experience of the blood draining from his body.

The woman was saying something to him. Asking if he recognised the body, and then demanding it. Jean could feel his head moving and then his mouth speaking words in a voice that didn't sound like his own. But Jean could do nothing but stare at his best friend's mouth, half of his face missing; the smile that could never return to the boy who always smiled.

And Jean cried that night. And he cried the night when Marco's body was cremated. He fell to his knees, clutching in his hand the only fragment left to remember him by, the only shred of Marco's scarf he still had to remind the world that his best friend had once existed. And Jean stayed with the fire until it smouldered to embers, and he stared blankly at the ashes before him.

* * *

It had been half a year after Jean had joined the Survey Corps. And as both he and his best friend had predicted, he had been forced to watch as everybody he had ever cared about died senselessly around him. Every death took a piece of his soul until there were no pieces left to break away. Until it was just he and Sasha, Connie and Krista. So much had happened that Jean was no longer sure if he was living in reality at all.

Battle would come, and with it would come the swords and the maneuver gear and the wait for his own death. But in the brief moments of peace between battles, Jean would think of Marco and what the boy would think of the world as Jean had learned it. What he would think about the titans that he had killed or the betrayal their own friends had subjected all of humanity to. Marco would come through Jean's memories and thoughts and longings.

Jean Kirstein tried to smile all the time. Because it was all he had left.

**Author's Note:**

> This came from a thought I had had, about the memory of a friend I love and miss so terribly, and how happiness isn't given to you, it's something you need to take from the world and fight to keep it.
> 
> I miss you, Kevin.


End file.
